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John Sullivan
'John Sullivan '(17 February 1740 – 23 January 1795) was Governor of New Hampshire from 7 June 1786 to 4 June 1788 (interrupting John Langdon's two terms) and from 22 January 1789 to 5 June 1790 (succeeding Langdon and preceding Josiah Bartlett). Sullivan was an American Revolutionary War veteran who had served as a general in the Continental Army, and he entered politics as a Federalist Party politician after the war, also serving as a federal judge from 1789 to 1795. Biography John Sullivan was born in Somersworth, New Hampshire in 1740 to a family of Irish settlers from County Cork; his father converted from Catholicism to Protestantism. Sullivan was the brother of James Sullivan, who would go on to become Governor of Massachusetts. John Sullivan became a lawyer in 1763 and became a major in the New Hampshire militia in 1772, and he abandoned his friendship with the royal governor John Wentworth in favor of joining the Patriots as a colonial uprising approached. In 1774, Sullivan represented Durham at the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire, and he was sent to the Second Continental Congress in 1775. The Continental Congress appointed Sullivan as a Brigadier-General at the start of the American Revolutionary War, as the army laying siege to Boston was in need of commanders. In 1776, George Washington sent Sullivan to take over the late John Thomas' command in Quebec, and he took command of the sick and faltering invasion force and withdrew, failing to counterattack against the British at the Battle of Trois-Rivieres. Sullivan was almost used as a scapegoat for the failure of the invasion of Canada, but he was exonerated and promoted to Major-General on 9 August 1776. Sullivan was placed in command of the Continental Army troops on Long Island to defend against the British assault on New York City. During the Battle of Long Island on 27 August 1776, Sullivan engaged the Hessians with a pistol in each hand, but he was captured. He was released in a prisoner exchange, and he rejoined the army in time to fight at the Battle of Trenton. He prevented the escape of the Hessians at Trenton and also acquitted himself well at the Battle of Princeton in January 1777, and he launched a raid on Staten Island that same year. He later fought at the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown, performing well despite the ultimate defeats there. In early 1778, he nearly ruined the alliance with France in the fiasco that was the Battle of Rhode Island, but his career was untainted, and he was considered as a possible commander for an invasion of British Canada. In the summer of 1779, Sullivan launched a massive campaign against the Iroquois in western New York. The "Sullivan Expedition" saw Sullivan push his soldiers so far that their horses became unusable, and he had his soldiers kill their horses; hence, the town name of Horseheads in Chemung County, New York. The Continental Congress gave him a lukewarm response and, tired of Congress' frequent opposition to him, Sullivan retired from the army in 1779 and returned to New Hampshire. However, Sullivan refused to defect to the American loyalists. In 1780, Sullivan was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, and he sought French financial support for both the United States and himself (he often claimed to be in financial straits), backed the creation of Vermont to settle the New Hampshire-New York border dispute, and supported Robert Livingston's appointment as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He resigned a month before his one-year term expired, as he believed that he had accomplished all of his goals. From 1782 to 1786, he served as New Hampshire's attorney general, and he also served in the state assembly, served as governor from 1786 to 1788, pushed for the state's ratification of the US Constitution, served as governor again from 1789 to 1790, and served as a federal judge from 1789 until he died in 1795. Category:1740 births Category:1795 deaths Category:American generals Category:Americans Category:Generals Category:Irish-Americans Category:Protestants Category:Federalist Party members Category:American conservatives Category:Conservatives Category:Freemasons Category:New Hampshire Federalists Category:People from New Hampshire Category:Patriots